Walker Is Already Overrated

Nate Cohn writes that Scott Walker could be a unifying consensus candidate for Republicans in 2016, but he offers this caveat:

To a certain extent, Walker is benefitting from caution and obscurity. Last year, I could have easily written that “Rubio could be a voter or a donor’s first choice, not just a compromise candidate.” Perhaps Walker will disappoint, too. After all, Pawlenty shared Walker’s impressive electoral record in competitive states, but apparently lacked the chops to pursue the presidency [bold mine-DL]. There’s no way to know whether Walker’s prepared until he runs.

The Pawlenty comparison is useful, but it may already give Walker too much credit. Like Pawlenty, Walker is being touted as a serious consensus candidate for Republicans because he doesn’t seem to have much competition for the role, and he is being elevated to top-tier status long before he deserves to be almost solely on the grounds that he was elected in a traditionally Democratic state. Unlike Pawlenty, he cannot yet even boast of being re-elected in such a state. Pawlenty’s candidacy famously had no discernible rationale except that his name wasn’t Romney, but at the moment a Walker candidacy would seem to have even less of a reason to exist. The argument for Pawlenty was that he would be able to combine his working-class background and evangelical Christianity with a quasi-populist agenda that would separate him from the rest of the field, but as we discovered this was never a very good argument. The argument for Walker is even less compelling, and it amounts to little more than the fact that he isn’t any of the other likely candidates.

Beyond that, the case for Walker as a successful presidential candidate is quite weak. Cohn assumes that Walker can win over Christian conservatives in early contests despite the fact that he does not dwell on social and cultural issues, but it is impossible to imagine Huckabee and Santorum prevailing in Iowa without having done this. Walker and Bush may have “overt religiosity” in common, but Bush benefited from having no major competition for religious conservative votes in 2000. Walker could easily have two or three rivals (possibly including Santorum) whose ability to mobilize evangelical and other religious conservative supporters is probably better than his. Walker’s appeal may not be limited to the South as Huckabee’s was, but there is not much reason to assume that he will outperform Southern rivals in the South. Hailing from a neighboring state might give Walker an advantage in Iowa, but no past winners on the Republican side have come from a neighboring state and the candidates that did collapsed long before the caucuses. As far as I can tell, the idea of a Walker candidacy is interesting to journalists and pundits that are already tired of the hype surrounding Christie, but it seems to be appealing to few others.

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11 Responses to Walker Is Already Overrated

The thing is, it’s the Republican establishment that has a veto over the eventual nominee, rather than the Christian Right or the far right wing of the party (when’s the last time the GOP nominated someone who wasn’t the “establishment approved” candidate? 1980?). So thinking in terms of “can this person win the Christian Right or the Tea Party or both” has it backwards–those groups will at least grudgingly back the candidate, even if s/he wasn’t their first choice. Turnout might be slightly lower in the general, but not by a large amount–ultimately, those voters will not sit idly by and let a liberal Democrat get elected.

So the real question of who can get elected is who can draw out the establishment support. And all the attempts to cross-appeal to the party’s fringe right groups (as “severely conservative” Romney did, with his talk of self-deportation and such) just reduce the possible paths to victory in November by turning off the sort of white-collar suburbanite voters who used to be Republican regulars. Remember the days when the GOP could win Pennsylvania, California, even New York? It seems so long ago, but that’s only because there are large numbers of moderates in the suburban and urban parts of those states who may not be much enamored with the excesses of the Democrats but are more turned off by what the GOP has become–a party beholden to its extreme wing.

Can Walker win? Way too early to tell, but if he tries to appeal to the party’s right wing he can be fairly sure that his chances of being anything more than the third straight GOP nominee to lose the general will be greatly reduced each time he panders.

Walker has done a good job for the Koch Brothers giving them a victory over the unions. And he survived a recall. Rand Paul and/or Rick Santorum supporters may not be impressed. But Walker will be eligible for corporate money and acceptable to corporate media.

I want to give Pawlenty some more credit. He seemed far more serious than his primary opponents. I disagreed with him, but wouldn’t have minded debating him, knowing he wouldn’t be pandering to the least common denominator, which, apparently, is required for primary victory.

I’m with Working Class … Walker is clearly the Koch candidate, and perhaps his bid would be more a shot across the bow to Christie to not do anything to upset the GOPs big donors this time around, than a serious candidacy.

Meanwhile, the GOP has gone two Presidential cycles without someone from the South on the ticket. Part of me thinks that these side candidates are auditioning for VP, but if Christie get the nod can the GOP go a third cycle without a Southerner on the ticket?

Isn’t Walker’s hypothetical message rather similar to Christie’s? Stuck it to the public employee unions and survived in a Democratic-leaning state. (Although, about Wisconsin’s partisan leanings: sure, it hasn’t voted Republican at the top of the ticket since 1984, but Republicans have won 5 of the last 7 elections for governor, and Walker looks better than even to win this next time around).

Other commenters have mentioned Walker’s worrisome connection to the Kochs, but even worse is his indebtedness to the vile Sheldon Adelson, who also dropped serious coin on the recall fight. I imagine that a Walker candidacy would very Bush/McCain/Romney on foreign policy (also like Christie).

when’s the last time the GOP nominated someone who wasn’t the “establishment approved” candidate? 1980?

Reagan was the establishment candidate that year, or let’s say that he split establishment support with Bush. If there was an anti-establishment candidate in the 1980 GOP primary field, it was John Anderson — who, appropriately enough, bolted for an independent candidacy.

Remember the days when the GOP could win Pennsylvania, California, even New York?

Those states, and others which voted Republican in the past but are now Democratic locks, were much whiter (in California’s case, much, much, much whiter) before the 90s — that is, before the effects of Reagan’s disastrous 1986 amnesty started kicking in, and the longer-term aftershocks of the 1965 opening of the immigration floodgates really started to show their force.

The declines in middle-class jobs in manufacturing (blue- and white-collar), along with declines in marriage and in-wedlock childbearing, also contributed to the GOP’s woes in those states.

None of which has anything to do with the boogeymen Tea Party and talk radio.

It would be nice if the media could f-cking forego talking about the 2016 elections until we get past the 2014 midterms and gubernatorial elections. Can we as a nation have a media that focuses on the pertinent issues of RIGHT NOW?

Amazing that Walker is being talked of as a presidential candidate without mentioning his record in Wisconsin – which is one long unmitigated failure. His “ideas” for improving Wisconsin’s economy and business climate have failed spectacularly. Forbes ranks the Badger State lower than every other midwestern state save Michigan. Meanwhile, next door in Minnesota, the opposite policies are being followed, and the results are putting Wisconsin to shame.

I don’t know…normally incisive, you might be a little over-confident this time. Cohn is right that Walker possesses “real conservative” credentials and seems to relish combat with Democrats (unlike Pawlenty, who was almost always transparently pandering). And while Pawlenty was supposed to unite middle class and social conservatives, Walker could unite the latter with business conservatives. And we all know the business wing is more important to the GOP nominating process than “Costco conservatives”. Also, I wouldn’t discount the possibility Christie is a factional candidate. He could, somewhat shockingly, be even weaker than Romney, which is too bad b/c I like Christie more.

Still, Walker is something of a doofus and you’re entirely right that he’s been untested on the nat’l level. Christie could potentially squash him.

“It would be nice if the media could f-cking forego talking about the 2016 elections until we get past the 2014 midterms and gubernatorial elections. Can we as a nation have a media that focuses on the pertinent issues of RIGHT NOW?”.

I agree and thus any talk of President Walker before he’s even been re-elected governor is completely daft. Any Presidential campaign plans are predicated on his getting re-elected, otherwise he’s the next George Allen Jr. Remember him?

Many political writers and reporters think Walker has already been re-elected or was given a ringing endorsement of his policies in the 2012 recall. In reality the decisive margin of Wisconsin voters (outside of Walker hardcore support) voted against the recall rather than for Walker because they realized if Walker was ousted ten any special interest group or rich billionare could essentially organize and fund any number of recall votes against any politician for any reason and the state would have non-stop elections from now to eternity. So Walker survived because the natural conservatism of the state’s electorate (as opposed to ideological conservatism) put a squash to using the state’s easy recall election laws for perpetual politics.

However, circa 2013, the last poll done on the governor’s race in Wisconsin showed Walker ahead but within the margin of error against two candidates, one of whom hasn’t announced she’s running yet and is little-known statewide and has no money. In fact Walker only polled 47 percent. Chris Christie got 61 percent in his “blue state” (which leans far more to the Democratic Party than Wisconsin does. The GOP controls the state legislature by sizable majorities and the Republicans have controlled the governor’s office for 18 of the last 28 years).

Pawlenty of course, was highly touted as well until it was pointed out he had never won a majority in his two elections as Minnesota governor, benefited from strong third party candidates splitting the opposition and had little passionate support from members of his own state party. Obviously if Walker is re-elected he’ll be in a much stronger position than Pawlenty was. But, Walker still has to win a second term and has to spend almost all of next year to do so. Christie, already has a second term locked up and is free to move about the country making sure he is the party establishment’s unanimous choice for 2016. Talk about having a head start.